Environmental news from California and beyond

Occupy Landfills! Trash from Occupy L.A. not recycled

From the Out of Sight, Out of Mind Dept: Remember the 25 tons of material left behind by Occupy L.A. campers after they were evicted from the park in front of City Hall early Wednesday morning?

It went to the dump.

As reported earlier in the Times, the mess of debris left behind after the two-month encampment included not just tents, tarps and other materials used for shelters, but also books and CDs, luggage and boom boxes, mattresses and dining chairs, cellphones, electric razors, even a small red guitar with its neck snapped. What was previously reported as 30 tons is now believed to be 25 tons.

According to Peter Sanders, a spokesman for the mayor’s office, none of that was reclaimed or recycled.

“The material collected by the Bureau of Sanitation after the park was closed was sent to a transfer station, and then to landfills. The collected material could not be recycled,” Sanders said.

Over 300 people were arrested during the eviction process, but the LAPD says that most of them either didn’t take their stuff or didn’t identify it as theirs.

“When the people were advised to leave, they were advised to take their property with them. If they don’t take their property, it’s booked as found property,” said Tenesha Dobine, a public information officer with the LAPD. “The tents and stuff: that might be considered abandoned property.”

Dobine said that anyone who was able to identify property as theirs during the arrests was given a receipt for that property and would be able to reclaim it.

Most of it, however, was simply left behind in the rush of the operation.

“Just like if you went camping and you drove away from your campsite and didn’t come back, you’d expect someone else would take it or it would get thrown away,” Dobine said.

Photo: Gino Ramirez of the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation picks up blankets during cleanup of the Occupy Los Angeles encampment following the Los Angeles Police Department raid on Wednesday. All of this material went to a landfill. Credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images.